What are some of your favorite cookbooks that aren't vegan, or some of your favorite vegan/veganized recipes from non-vegan cookbooks? I like getting all kinds of cookbooks from the library for ideas, even if they seem veg-unfriendly at first.

-The New Moosewood Cookbook is a favorite, I love the peanut sauce, lentil-walnut burgers, and marinated mushrooms. -Breakfast Lunch Tea by Rose Carrarini: I'm perfecting my veganization of the gluten free lemon polenta cake from Breakfast Lunch Tea, and the vegan pancakes from there are great. Also, the maple syrup scones (the recipe is online here: http://www.foodonthefood.com/food_on_the_food/2008/03/scones.html) with soymilk and earth balance subbed, brush with soymilk instead of egg, and sprinkle with sugar. -How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is a nice reference, but I don't use it too frequently. The falafel is really good, and it's nice for when you need to use up and ingredient and you are stuck.-Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home is ok, but I really love the Lemon Date Bars, only change is subbing Earth Balance.-Rick Bayless Mexican Everyday - he gives veg. options for some dishes, and others are good inspiration. I subbed soyrizo in the mushroom chorizo potato tacos and they were fantastic.-Barefoot Contessa - my grandma gave me Barefoot Contessa at Home and I've gotten some others from the library. I like her appetizer/snack ideas and there are some really nice vegetable sides, plus her cookbooks always have big gorgeous photos. -Jamie Oliver's Italy - beware, there are a handful of graphic meat photos, but there's also the grape foccacia that I drool over every time I flip through it, and lots of veggie and pasta dishes. Really beautiful photos, and they are matte on big, thick paper. I am a sucker for gorgeous cookbooks.

I use my "The new rayburn cookbook" http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Rayburn-Coo ... 1904573266 a lot, although it has mostly meat and any veg is dairy heavy.Seriously people are suprised that I still have meat heavy cookbooks about but I say why not? 99% of recipies can be adapted perfectly well, some tofu here., some soya milk there, extra veggies and beans....ATM I only have one vegan cookbook (not including vegfan cupcakes!) and to be honest its dull as dishwater and if the pictures look unapitising its hard to get excited about cooking it.I plan to change this (Forwarding my amazon wish list to my mum this year) but so far I've done ok :)

whenever i want to recreate something comforting from my childhood i turn to big red betty crocker book. it's pretty simple stuff and usually not that hard to make vegan substitutions, and the chocolate chip cookies are still my go-to CCC recipe.

_________________Gwyneth Paltrow: "I'm superstitious. Whenever I start a new movie I kill a hobo with a hammer."

Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2010 2:10 pmPosts: 777Location: between a rock and a hard place

My favorite nonvegan cookbook is probably 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer. It's not even vegetarian, but there are lots of recipes that are already vegan and many more that can be veganized, some more easily than others. There is an entire chapter of legume recipes - I don't remember exactly which ones I used because I don't have the book in front of me, but there is a garlicky moong dal recipe that is amazing...I didn't think I liked moong dal because some ways I've made it tasted like I cooked it in a dirty ashtray, but I gave it another shot for a recipe or two in this book, and I'm glad I did.

I have tons of non-vegan cookbooks, and still buy them from time to time. I used to love the Cooks Illustrated/American Test Kitchen, but they're about worthless to me now. I have several Indian/Thai cookbooks (a Madhur Jaffrey one is my favorite). I have a few Moosewood cookbooks that were important when I first went vegetarian, but I almost never crack their covers now.

My absolute favorite, non-vegan cookbook is: The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Awesome bread book. It has lots of information about the bread making process, good instruction and nice pics. It probably only has 30-40 recipes, but most are vegan or easy to veganize. The Italian Bread, made with barley malt syrup is amazing bread.

The Pasta e Cecci recipe from Jamie Oliver's Italy is my go-to comfort food recipe. I make it at least once a week (and am ashamed to say that I make the whole thing, designed for four people, and my room mate and I scarf it all ourselves).

_________________Everyone turns into Boo Radley, if they live long enough ~ seitanicversesThere are as many ways to live as there are humans in the world ~ SchwaGrrrl

I also really like Love Soup by Anna Thomas. There are a couple soups that would be hard to veganize, but the majority are vegan if you, you know, don't put goat cheese on top, and I've made several soups from it, they've all been great.

My absolute favorite, non-vegan cookbook is: The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Awesome bread book. It has lots of information about the bread making process, good instruction and nice pics. It probably only has 30-40 recipes, but most are vegan or easy to veganize. The Italian Bread, made with barley malt syrup is amazing bread.

Going to second Reinhart's bread books. I have the Bread Baker's Apprentice and Artisan breads Everyday out from the library right now and I'm seriously considering buying Artisan breads for myself. I like BBA too but it doesn't seem as user-friendly to me.

I used to love the Cooks Illustrated/American Test Kitchen, but they're about worthless to me now.

Wow, really? I use CI/ATK/Cooks Country recipes all the time with generally good results, especially for baked goods and sides, but also main dishes with appropriate substitutes. In fact, my CI/CC/ATK recipes are probably my favorite omni recipes to veganize.

I have an obscene number of cookbooks. Really gross. But the one I always seem to start with from years of habit is Joy of Cooking. I have so many scribbled notes from veganizing recipes some pages look like children's art. The cookbook I ever received was New Basics, and I have to credit it with both rethinking my approach to cooking and launching a cookbook obsession. Ina Garten taught me how to entertain with less stress, launched me into homemade hummus, provided me with endless dips (her 1/3 mayo, 1/3 sour cream, 1/3 cream cheese + flavorings/herbs basic recipe is obviously veganizable and invariably a hit), and provides the one meal that my omni relatives will eat (spicy veggie/peanut noodles) and only because they worship her. Nigella Lawson put the context back into cooking and eating for me. Madhur Jaffrey made Indian cuisine accessible to me. Deborah Madison and Moosewood helped me come up with meal plans that are veganizable. And the wide variety of ethnic, regional, and specialty cookbooks that I cannot quit buying have kept variety and flavor in my cooking.And all this was before I discovered VWAV, VCon, etc.

I like How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I use it a lot when we get odd CSA veggies or when I want a classic recipe that isn't in any other cookbook. I also love my family cookbooks. We have one of just family recipes and another of my mom's church which is mostly relatives. They are straight up Americana and my casserole bibles.

I love the newer version of "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" by Mark Bittman. He has lots of substitutions and simple recipes and it's just really nice to work with.

Is there a new edition already? I'll have to find that!

There's a curry noodle recipe How to Cook Everything (not the vegetarian one) that I love. It's sort of like Singapore noodles. I think the original recipe is actually vegan, though we often follow one of the variations and add ground seitan.

I love the newer version of "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" by Mark Bittman. He has lots of substitutions and simple recipes and it's just really nice to work with.

Is there a new edition already? I'll have to find that!

I can't find any info on a new edition, but Mark Bittman does have another book, called How to Cook Everything: Vegetarian Cooking, that I believe is just a fluffed out version of the veg section of his first HTCE book. I was under the impression his big, green tome HTCE: Vegetarian was an entirely separate entity.

_________________Gwyneth Paltrow: "I'm superstitious. Whenever I start a new movie I kill a hobo with a hammer."

I love the newer version of "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" by Mark Bittman. He has lots of substitutions and simple recipes and it's just really nice to work with.

Is there a new edition already? I'll have to find that!

I can't find any info on a new edition, but Mark Bittman does have another book, called How to Cook Everything: Vegetarian Cooking, that I believe is just a fluffed out version of the veg section of his first HTCE book. I was under the impression his big, green tome HTCE: Vegetarian was an entirely separate entity.

That's what I thought, too. HtCEV just came out two or three years ago. It seems early for a new edition.

I just pre-ordered Harold McGee's new book Keys to Good Cooking, purely based on the number of useful pieces of information On Food and Cooking contains. Madhur Jaffrey's new book arrived this weekend. The UK title is "Curry Easy", but I think it's something else in the US. So far, I've only made the ginger spinach soup (with substitutions), but I'm already pleased I got it.

I have a few more of her books, vegetarian and non-vegetarian, as well as Julie Sahni's and a few more "international" style and Asian books (Thai, Nepali, Vietnamese, Chinese). I like spicy food and if something is universally hailed as a particularly source on a particular cuisine, I'll get it, even if I can only use it as a guide to making sauces and seasoning food. Peter Reinhart and Mark Bittman have already been mentioned.

mollyjade wrote:

There's a curry noodle recipe How to Cook Everything (not the vegetarian one) that I love. It's sort of like Singapore noodles. I think the original recipe is actually vegan, though we often follow one of the variations and add ground seitan.

I'm a little tempted by that book. I'm guessing it's comprehensive enough to have a few interesting recipes I'd actually use, although I'm not sure I can justify adding more enormous hardbacks to my book shelf. I have the vegetarian one and get a lot of use out of it. If I wasn't too sceptical about whether he'd use it, I'd get the non-veg version for my vegetable-hating brother who recently moved to his first "own" place.

From J-Simple Recipes (admittedly a Website, not a cookbook):- Broiled Tofu Bites on a Skewer- Deep-Fried Tofu Sushi- Kansai-Style Ozôni

There are also many more vegan recipes in all these resources, but I haven't tried most of them yet. For instance, the Burgers book has only one vegan burger patty, bot LOTS of condiments, salads, sides, etc. that look extra yummy. The America's Test Kitchen book has about 20 vegan main dishes (not marked as such - you have to rifle through), and many side dishes. Betty Crocker's has slightly less vegan main dishes, but more vegan sides, desserts and others, and in my experience, Betty Crocker's recipes always turn out well (decidedly unhealthy though). J-Simple has traditional Japanese mains and sides.

I bet a lot of recipes from these resources can easily be adapted, too. So for anyone who already has some of these books or wishes to borrow them at the library, I'd say it is worthwhile to keep them or have a look at them.

I also have many French-language non-vegan cookbooks, so if anyone who reads French would be interested to know about delicious vegan recipes I found in them, just ask.

I second The Food You Crave by Ellie Krieger, along with her other two cookbooks. Her cookbooks are nearly indispensable to me; when I went vegan I sold back a ton of old omni cookbooks, but Ellie remains on my shelf. She got me over my fear of hummus, encouraged me to try muhammara dip, and her roasted brussels sprouts made me a believer. Plus she's a dietician, so she focuses on whole foods as opposed to shortcuts and semi-homemade style recipes.

Yep, I love her!! I used to belong to a blogging group that would make her food once a week and blog about it. It was called Craving Ellie in My Belly. Turns out, Ellie caught wind somehow of our little gang and started commenting on our posts! Then she actually wrote a recipe for us and encouraged us to test it out for her. It was this amazing roasted tomato and almond pesto over spaghetti noodles, yum! So yeah, I'm a big fan. Jealous you got to hear her speak!